23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
You will need few days of good rain to soften the soil. OR you keep watering everyday , for a while to make it workable. I have made garden under such situation that even a pick hardly could make a dent. Now that it is the end of season , wait until later in the fall after a lot of rainy days.
Simultaneously I would work in lots of compost, manure, ..
We don't have that kind of problem but I have found it easier to just follow some Lasagna Garden methods of building a raised bed without solid sides. I prefer to have several manageable size beds instead of one big garden. Some people call it sheet composting. The first year when I had time, I kept layering whatever I could to build up a pile about 24 inches tall. In the spring we added composted horse manure that had bedding and kitchen scraps mixed in during the winter. Great craigslist find we have been back to every spring. That original bed built in 2007 in now level with the grass area. It compacts a lot over the first winter. I have tons of earth worms and wonder if you can just let good composting principles and Mother Nature do the work for you. I have friends with salad tables that are quite shallow who brag about how productive they are. After a first hilling of potatoes, I just pile on straw. Here in NH we have trees growing out of crevices in rocks so I bet plant roots and earth worms can eventually make a dent in that solid layer. Also, if you have a raised bed, that should help alleviate drainage problems. You don't have to have solid sides.
I had 2' paths in my first veg garden and it drove me crazy. Now I always insist on 4' and I love my nice, wide paths.
If you have the room I highly recommend making the paths as wide as you can. Think about maneuvering a wheelbarrow full of heavy compost between your rows, and then having to get around in front of it to start with the spreading. Also, are you going to invite outsiders into your veg garden? The more space they have to move the better, because non-gardeners can be like bulls in a china shop. I don't know how many times I said: 'look out for the seedlings' and then watched someone step on the plants I had just pointed out.
My neighbor is a real farmer and she has a 1/2 acre vegetable garden. The plot is perfectly rectangle, fenced in. The rows run east to west. The paths are wide, like 4-5' (could be wider), to at least allow wheelbarrow to get in. Not sure if they run the motor cart. Make sure the paths between the rows allow maintenance and picking equipment to get in.
They do grow medium size sunflowers on the north side. With the wide paths, tomatos do not look tall. They also grow beans, peas, peppers, and some flowers.
In an open plot, the orientation is not very important. Just make sure to space the plants correctly and having the tall plants on the north side.
I have not tried Auburn university to see if they have a group that continues older varieties, I have grown three of the 4 they developed. Au Producer, Golden Au Producer and Au Sweet Scarlet. Was going to trial Au Jubilant but Willhite discontinued it before I got around to it. Sweet Scarlet was my favorite. Really could not determine that Au Producer did anything better than Crinson Sweet. Same was true with The yellow fleshed producer versus the Yellow Crimson. Sweet Scarlet was unique and did not imitate any variety that I am aware of. I trial some hybrids but so far have not found any apprecailbly better than their OP counterparts. Most imitate Crimson Sweet, Allsweet, Charleston Grey or Jubilee.
Agree that we need to know where you live as that tells us what your climate is like. That tells you how far ahead of planting you would add the manure.
Also agree that you should never use fresh manure anywhere in a food garden. Use well-aged, composted manures only. This is especially important when growing low level crops like lettuce and other things where the edible parts will come into direct contact with the soil.
Plus community gardens will usually have guidelines for when you can add/use manures.
So could you provide us with more information please?
Dave
Tx for the replies. Yes, the stalks actually snapped, though they are still technically attached. :-(
I tried to rreinforce the roots with more soil.
Honestly, I have no idea what I am doing.
My question now is, shud i cut off the tops at the juncture where they snapped? The rest of the stalk (the bottom foot) still seems healthy.
If they have snapped, it leaves room for disease. I believe defrost49 may be correct. But hey it's a garden and gardens of any type are experiments. Does your son like science? Perhaps, they will off shoot at the tops. I had a lab that ate the tops of some of my corn one time, some grew, some died. They were only about two feet tall. Also, I'm with Jim, I always wait three days. I like the number 3 such as 3 strikes your out- easy to remember. Plants will usually tell you what they are going to do in 3 days.
What zone do you live in? The United States Department of Agriculture has set up plant hardiness zones nationwide. For instance where I live in NC, our county has two zones, 7A and 7B. We have about 200 possible days of growing most things. Zones are determined by lowest average temperature. So in our neck of the woods, that's about 0 to 5 F. You can find out your zone by googling "what zone is...in"
Corn takes 60-100 days to mature, depends on the type. October here is a funny month, sometimes frost, sometimes not. I am planting cool season things now, but most others are finishing up, doing their canning, etc.
Don't let him give up on growing things! Barnes and Noble had Square Foot Gardening 1st Edition by Mel Bartholomew on sale for about $7.00 a couple weeks ago. There is a new edition out. There is also Strawbale Gardening by Joel Karsten. I started one set of great nieces and nephews on SFG, got them some miracle grow potting soil when it was on sale and added some peat moss. This stopped us from having to scour the countryside for vermiculite which was not at the big box stores. Another set, we started straw bales because they were easy to get in their area of the country, and their parents didn't want to give up a 4x4 area so we took a 3x10 due to yard layout, it worked great. The straw bales also gave them a great start on composting. They grew top crops and when those things were spent, planted root crops. They started in fall so they were able to get straw bales free or really cheap, planted spinach, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and then in spring potatoes. Now that set has gone on to take another part of the yard over-they got the bug. They are experimenting with traditional gardening, raised beds and something else with logs -I don't remember the name.
If the corn is not growing, teach him about composting. Besides this website, there are many, many more that can help. Though I prefer gardenweb, I would suggest starting with your agricultural extension officer for your county.
Elaine
Platanus:
I grow tomatoes from seed. Usually heirlooms with no
resistance to early blight. This year I have Reif's red heart from Sandhill Preservation in Iowa. Mighty tasty variety.
I agree with your statement on blight. Usually I prune off the lower branches when young as septora leaf spot seems to start on the lower branches and works its way up. I find that pruning my heirloom tomatoes up at the base (2' from ground level) allows good air flow and sunlight at the bottom of the plants.
This seems to reduce my chances of blight as I successfully get crops every year without spraying
chlorothalonil for blight control. My neighbors all get blight
every year but so far I am successful.
I have a bit of septoria this year (wet, cool growing season).
Not bad. My neighbor's modern tomatoes have early blight like crazy. He never prunes the lower branches.
Just an FYI to all that pruning up the lower branches in youth seems to really reduce some disease issues I see
on tomatoes in my area.
For those that want to spray, chlorothalonil does work well.
My sister lives in a commercial potato growing area so
lots of early blight around. She cannot keep a tomato plant alive without spraying.
I prefer no spray if possible and lucky so far.
I agree on the basal pruning, which I think helps set back early blight. I trimmed up my late tomatoes yesterday.
We had three badly-timed rainy intervals this year that gave the early and main crop tomatoes a hard time, but I've been pleased with 'Ruth's Perfect' from Turtle Tree (OP, biodynamic). The plants next to these melted down completely with early blight and septoria, but 'Ruth's Perfect' is still carrying on. Also blight resistant 'Plum Regal'(f1) made a huge crop even though it got hit pretty bad with septoria. Today I'll finish taking out the old tomatoes and cover crop with mustard.
I found that direct seeding did not work as well as starting seeds in plastic pots where I can control things. Out in the garden the flea beetles or something would half-way decimate the young seedlings.
I have already transplanted #2 planting of broccoli. I find them to have NO stress that way.
I have been growing sunflowers as a color-fence around my garden but I have finally learned that they do inhibit the growth of vegetables near them. I transplanted green and red pepper seedlings into garden ground near them in May 2014, and the pepper's growth just stalled out for over 6 weeks. I decided to dig up the peppers as a last ditch effort and to my surprise the peppers exploded with growth in their new pots almost overnight. It is early August and probably too late but I'll give the peppers a new start far away from the sunflowers. I plan to move the sunflowers back from the garden edge next year.
Easiest to prep in the fall. Do you want a raised bed so you can plant earlier or do you want to direct sow? Any chemicals thrown out under the shed? Are you going to trellis the cucumbers?
Do you have a good turning fork or garden fork. They are the easiest for me to work with.
Soil - Do you have access to horse manure (needs to hit 130F for three straight days to get rid of harmful bacteria), rabbit manure ready right from the get go, leaves - we have lots I run the lawn mower over them to mulch them up, breaks down easier. I have learned of a 40 horse barn that I'm accessing here in the South. I let the manure cook, add fall leaves and this year will be adding straw from my small area of straw bale garden. If you have no compost yet, straw bale gardening is a quick way to get lots of it by summers end. Worse thing about the horse manure - my dog thinks it's her personal playground and took livestock fencing out to get to it:)
Do you want to put some type of row covering over it so you can get earlier veggies? PVC or electrical conduit works fine. Have you started composting?
The primary edible parts of the rabe plant are the leaves. The best varieties have more leaves that bulbs and stalks. I planted a similar plant called spigiriello that is more stalky, but the leaves are great; tastes a lot like collards.